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Best whisky for rum lovers

Whiskies for rum drinkers: rum-cask finishes, bourbon's vanilla and toffee, and sherry-cask malts for fans of aged dark rum, with live UK prices for each.

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If you drink rum, start with a whisky finished in rum casks, such as Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask, or with bourbon, whose new charred oak gives vanilla, toffee and brown sugar. Drinkers of aged dark rum often like sherry-cask malts too. A rum-cask finish is one stage of the whisky’s maturation, so it adds a note of rum rather than making the whisky taste like rum.

From the rum you like to the whisky to try. The shared flavours mostly come from the oak. For a note of the rum itself, try a whisky finished in rum casks, which adds a sweeter, fruitier note: Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask, Glen Scotia Double Cask Rum Cask Finish, Teeling Small Batch Rum Cask Finish or Mossburn 12 Year Old Foursquare Finish. If you drink golden or dark rum, bourbon shares vanilla and toffee from new charred oak: try Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, Maker's Mark or Four Roses Bourbon. If you drink aged dark rum, sherry casks give dried fruit, raisin and spice: try Aberlour 12 Year Old or Balvenie 12 Year Old DoubleWood. If you like the strong, fruity style of Jamaican rum, try a full-flavoured peated malt such as Talisker 10 Year Old.

Why rum and whisky overlap

Rum is distilled from sugar cane, usually molasses, and much of it is aged in ex-bourbon barrels. Whisky is distilled from grain. The flavours they share mostly come from the oak: vanilla, caramel and spice from charred American oak, and dried fruit from European oak. A rum cask adds something of the rum itself, usually a sweeter, fruitier note.

Whisky finished in rum casks

Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask: £66.95 at Master of Malt. A Speyside single malt at 43% ABV, aged in traditional oak casks and finished in casks seasoned with Caribbean rum.

Glen Scotia Double Cask Rum Cask Finish: £39.95 at Hard To Find Whisky. A Campbeltown single malt at 46% ABV, finished in rum casks.

Teeling Small Batch Rum Cask Finish: £34.90 at Master of Malt. A blend of Irish malt and grain whiskey at 46% ABV, finished in ex-rum casks.

Mossburn 12 Year Old Foursquare Finish: £59.73 at Master of Malt. A Speyside blended malt finished in casks from Foursquare, a rum distillery in Barbados. It is bottled at 57.7% ABV, so add water to taste.

Bourbon for golden and dark rum drinkers

Bourbon must be made from at least 51% corn and aged in new charred oak containers, and it may not contain added colouring or flavouring. The fresh char is where its vanilla and toffee come from. Whiskipedia’s guide to bourbon casks explains why those barrels are then reused for Scotch and rum.

Woodford Reserve Double Oaked: £55.00 at Master of Malt. A Kentucky bourbon at 43.2% ABV, finished in a second new barrel that is heavily toasted and lightly charred.

Maker’s Mark: £35.00 at The Whisky Shop. A Kentucky bourbon that uses red winter wheat instead of rye in its mash, which keeps the spice lower.

Four Roses Bourbon: £23.95 at Master of Malt. A Kentucky bourbon at 40% ABV.

Sherry-cask malts for aged rum drinkers

Sherry casks give dried fruit, raisin and spice, which drinkers of older dark rums often like. See the sherry-cask guide for more.

Aberlour 12 Year Old: £45.00 at The Whisky Shop. A Speyside single malt at 40% ABV from traditional oak and sherry casks.

Balvenie 12 Year Old DoubleWood: £50.28 at Master of Malt. A Speyside single malt at 40% ABV, finished in oloroso sherry casks.

Reading a rum-cask label

Rum-cask whiskies are mostly finishes, and many are limited releases. The label may name the rum’s origin (Caribbean, Jamaican, a named distillery) but rarely says how long the finish lasted. “Rum cask” tells you what the cask held, not how much it changed the whisky. Every rum-cask whisky on the site is listed together.

Sources and review

Questions

What whisky tastes most like rum?
No whisky tastes like rum, but rum-cask finishes and bourbon come closest. Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask is finished in casks that held Caribbean rum, and bourbon’s new charred oak gives the vanilla, toffee and brown sugar notes many aged rums share.
What is a rum-cask finish?
The whisky spends its final months in a cask that previously held rum, after ageing in other casks. Balvenie 14 Year Old Caribbean Cask (43% ABV) and Glenfiddich 21 Year Old, finished in Caribbean rum casks, are two long-running Speyside examples.
Can rum drinkers enjoy Scotch?
Yes. Fans of aged dark rum often like sherry-cask malts such as Aberlour 12 Year Old or Balvenie 12 Year Old DoubleWood for their dried fruit and spice. Drinkers who like the strong, fruity style of Jamaican rum may prefer a full-flavoured peated malt such as Talisker 10 Year Old.
Is spiced rum similar to bourbon?
They share vanilla and spice flavours, but for different reasons. Spiced rum has spices and often sugar added after distilling. Bourbon may not contain added flavouring or colouring, so its vanilla and spice come from the grain, mostly corn, and the new charred oak barrels it must be aged in.

About the author

Tom Gregan

· Writer

Tom came to whisky by way of cocktails and rum. As the mind behind CocktailDB.com he spent years on citrus balance, bitters and modifiers before John dragged him over to neat spirits.